[PF] Replacing Armor Class with parrying/dodging

[Jeivar]

I may be running a Pathfinder game for the first time in a few weeks, and I thought of making this change to the combat. Partly to make it more dynamic and partly because the AC rule has never made much sense to me.
The idea is that characters make opposed parry/dodge rolls when attacked, shields add a bonus to that roll, and armor merely gives damage reduction.

Has anyone here tried this? Is it more messy than I'm imagining? Also, I'm not sure what to do about the fact that the armor damage reduction change would mean that a poorly armed character simply can't take on someone in good armor. I COULD let different kinds of weapons affect armor differently, but that would be an added complication that I really don't want.

[Spiryt]

Well, I'm pretty sure that the way damage scales and differs in 3.5/PF, DM armor doesn't really make sense or work well...

Some attacks will be severely hampered, but most won't ever notice armor much.

Personally I sometimes add DR in addition to AC provided, then it works pretty well.


Partly to make it more dynamic and partly because the AC rule has never made much sense to me.
The idea is that characters make opposed parry/dodge rolls when attacked,

This will add a lot of tiring rolls to otherwise roll-heavy gameplay though.

Again, personally, I like to just add characters AC based on their BAB - because AC scales very poorly, and it's from whatever reason hard to rise, no matter how good character is at fighting.

[Eldan]

The damage reduction would really need to scale with level. Otherwise, everyone can just chuck it away and fight naked after about level 5. By the time everyone deals 4d6+50 damage (or something), DR 5 won't matter much. On the other hand, anything over DR 5 would be huge when your fighter deals 2d6+6 as a best case and probably more something like 1d8+5.

I don't see why it would be more dynamic either. The mathematics are the same, the only thign you did is replace one roll with two rolls, which only takes longer. The default rules already include parrying and dodging, that's what the dexterity bonus is for.

[TuggyNE]

I don't see why it would be more dynamic either. The mathematics are the same, the only thign you did is replace one roll with two rolls, which only takes longer. The default rules already include parrying and dodging, that's what the dexterity bonus is for.

They're not exactly the same, but rather tend to be a curve (http://anydice.com/program/1b93/graph/transposed). (The "1" curve is the chance of hitting with the given difference between attack bonus and AC/defense bonus.) However, it's fairly linear around the average case (i.e., when you have only a moderate chance to hit, increasing attack gives a nearly linear increase in hit chance, or vice versa).

[Adamantrue]

What you could do is adopt the Players Roll All the Dice (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/playersRollAllTheDice.htm) variant, so that you don't increase the number of die rolls. Its sill the same basic mechanic, but it gives the PCs that sense of a good block or well timed dodge.

[BladeTempest]

or you could use this (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/variants/armorAsDamageReduction.html) rules variant which is available on the pfsrd

The end result will be that your players get "hit" more often but if they are constantly buying the best armor available to them and supplementing it with natural armor they will be taking very little in the way of "meaningful" damage.

I know this seems off but a lvl 20 barbarian who gains proficiency in heavy armor (or is wearing mithral full plate i am still unsure of that ruling) can eventually have an effective damage reduction of dr 23/- against each attack. while this may not seem like much at first when enemies are doing around 80 damage on average a turn most people tend to forget that is 80 points of damage spread across multiple attacks. as such each of those hits mean 23 less damage per hit which. because of this each character will probably wind up taking roughly 1/4 to 1/2 of the damage they would otherwise take each round.

if there is a druid in the party this dr can get even larger. Also if said barbarian invests in fortified armor (you know the fortification effect) then they will be almost unstoppable because they will take far fewer critical hits and sneak attacks

[ngilop]

I thought for a moment he was going to incorporate the conan d20 defenses as well.

Really just giving classes a sclaing defense bonus depentant on base attack is teh best and most simplest solution
Somewher eon the d20 threads i posted my solution in regards to what clasess should get what, I tried ( spent about 20 minutes or so) looking for the post in by going back through the many..many pages of thread history but alas. i must have over looked it.

[Prime32]

or you could use this (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/variants/armorAsDamageReduction.html) rules variant which is available on the pfsrd

The end result will be that your players get "hit" more often but if they are constantly buying the best armor available to them and supplementing it with natural armor they will be taking very little in the way of "meaningful" damage.Assuming you remove the inexplicable "attacks from larger creatures ignore your armor" rule. It could also do with faster scaling for heavier armor.

[Yitzi]

I may be running a Pathfinder game for the first time in a few weeks, and I thought of making this change to the combat. Partly to make it more dynamic and partly because the AC rule has never made much sense to me.
The idea is that characters make opposed parry/dodge rolls when attacked, shields add a bonus to that roll, and armor merely gives damage reduction.

I would advise that instead of opposed rolls, you simply use a flat "defense class", to reduce the number of rolls.
Consider giving Combat Expertise usable against one enemy at a time for free, as a way of expressing the idea of parrying.


Also, I'm not sure what to do about the fact that the armor damage reduction change would mean that a poorly armed character simply can't take on someone in good armor. I COULD let different kinds of weapons affect armor differently, but that would be an added complication that I really don't want.

One idea is to have a few kinds of weapons (maces and crossbows come to mind) that have a minimum damage to which they can be reduced from armor.
Whether you do that or not, make Combat Reflexes (which the characters you're concerned about will presumably be using anyway) let you take a penalty to your attack roll in order to reduce the target's armor-based DR by the same amount.